What to Expect in 2016, From an Industry Leader

In these early days of the new year, all eyes will be on the U.S. House as it prepares to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, which will go to President Obama’s desk for a certain veto.

There are far weightier developments likely to happen in 2016, however, and Susan DeVore, President and CEO of Premier, Inc. and chair of the Healthcare Leadership Council penned a recent article in Health Affairs that does an excellent job spelling out the trends we should be watching in the coming months.  Among the developments she cites:

• With the coming implementation of new Medicare physician payment formulas and rules, physicians will be determining which payment model works best for their practices and understanding how to improve performance to meet new quality standards.

• Value-based contracting between providers and healthcare manufacturers will become more prevalent, with compensation ties to a product’s ability to meet certain performance criteria.

• Telemedicine will continue to prove itself as a cost-effective mechanism for managing patient care, spurring discussions on the service’s role in healthcare payment systems.

• To drive more market competition in the pharmaceutical market, Ms. DeVore projects speedier FDA approvals of new drugs.  She notes that competition has already brought down prices of the much-talked-about Hepatitis C medications.

• The likelihood of legislation requiring more usability and interoperability among electronic medical records systems.

• Noting that health providers are faced with literally hundreds of different performance quality measures, she projects an effort to consolidate and simplify measurement systems among government and private payers.

The full Susan DeVore Health Affairs post can be found here.